The Decameron is a climactic culmination of medieval storytelling.  In this work, Boccaccio collects and retells 100 traditional stories with his own personal twist.  In the frame to the stories, Boccaccio has ten aristocratic young people meet in the country outside Florence because of the plague that is rampant in the city.  To while away the time, the young people decide to tell stories, one story each for each day that they are together in the country.  They end up staying together ten days and telling 100 stories (10 days X 10 stories each day).

You will recognize elements of many of the stories.  The story of Ser Cepperello is a saint's life (with an interesting twist).  The story of Guillaume de Rousillon is a Breton lai.  The story of Pinuccio and Adriano is a fabliau.  Boccaccio, in telling these tales, is relying on our familiarity with traditional plot lines and genres.

The Decameron is unique and important primarily for what it tells us about the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance.  Boccaccio lives right on the borderline between the two periods.  He is both the final, culminating representative of medieval literature and the first, preliminary representative of Renaissance literature.  He straddles the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  In some ways, he is very medieval, and in some ways, he is very Renaissance.

So, let's read Boccaccio with an eye to what he can teach us about European culture at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance.  I recommend that we concentrate on three areas:

1. Do Boccaccio's stories differ at all from earlier medieval stories of the same kind?  If so, how?  When you compare the story of Guillaume de Rousillon to the Breton lais of Marie de France, is there any difference in outlook, content, tone, values?  When you look at the story of Pinuccio and Adriano in comparison to the other fabliaux we've read, has anything changed?  What do the changes suggest about the difference between Boccaccio's time and the era of the writers of those earlier tales?
2. What kind of world does Boccaccio seem to live in?  How does Boccaccio seem to think the world works?  How does Boccaccio's world compare to the world in the Song of Roland or in Marie de France or in the other medieval tales we've read or in Dante?  What is unique or different about Boccaccio's perspective?
3. What does Boccaccio seem to value?  How do his values compare to the values of the Song of Roland or of Marie de France or of the other medieval tales we've read or of Dante?  Who are the "bad guys" and "good guys" in Boccaccio's stories?  Would they have been the "bad guys" and "good guys" in earlier medieval stories?  Have values changed during the course of the Middle Ages?